New Aquarium

[Ashetto24]

Hi everyone. I recently was given a 20 gallon aquarium set as a gift for Christmas. Needless to say I have been doing a lot of research and I am a bit overwhelmed. Here is a quick synopsis of my tank set up and the questions I have. I would greatly appreciate any input!

Tank specifics:
- 20 gallon
- air stone/air pump
- filter (came w/ tank)
- hood w/ lighting
- various decorations
- live plants..not sure of name (no roots...look a bit like moss?)
- heater
- thermometer

I added some Aqua safe the first day I put in water and let the filter run for over 24 hours. I went out and purchased some starter fish, 6 Serpae tetras. I have the temperature set at 77 degrees F.

The fish seem to be doing quite well and are much more comfortable in the tank. I feed them twice daily.

My big questions are:

1) When should I do my first cleaning?

2) When should I add more fish to the tank...I read that it takes about 6 weeks for a tank to go through a complete cycle.

3) I am unsure of which kinds of tropical fish I can add to my tank when I am ready. I really would like some colorful fish so I was thinking of Dwarf Gouramis, Boesemani Rainbowfish and I also read on a few places that a Kribensis cichlid would be ok with the Tetra's? I would like another group of fish as well like my tetra's.

Thanks for any help!!

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Ashetto24 and Welcome to TFF!

You are in what we call a "Fish-In Cycling Situation" and we have a nice write-up about that by a member called rabbut in our Beginners Resource Center pinned at the top of our subforum here I believe. I'd take a look at that as a guideline and starting point for your questions. You are correct - you shouldn't add any more fish until your tests show that you have cycled the aquarium and thus have a working biofilter.

To help you know the progress of your cycle and thus learn about this core aspect of the hobby called cycling, I recommend that you find a good liquid-reagent based water test kit. Many of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit.

Once you get your kit, post up your test results for both your tap water and your current tank water. Another important thing will be to discuss what types of filter media (sponges etc.) you have in your filter (and what type of filter it is.) We want to be sure you don't have any chemical media in there that might remove the food the bacteria will need to grow.

To have a working biofilter you need to grow two specific species (it actually may be groupings of very similar species in each case (there are estimated to be over 150 million species of small celled species and very few have been described in the world.) Anyway, the first species, Nitrosomonas spp., will process ammonia(NH3) into nitrite(NO2) and then the second species, Nitrospira spp., will process nitrite(NO2) into nitrate(NO3) and this is removed from the aquarium via weekly water changes.

When fish have been placed into a situation where the biofilter is still being grown, its possible to keep them alive and healthy by making sure that neither the ammonia nor the nitrite(NO2) exceed a concentration of 0.25ppm at any given time. Your goal with your test kit is to figure out what frequency and percentage of water changes will acheive this goal. You'll want to test morning and evening and be prepared to perform water changes (with good technique - dosing chlorine/chloramine remover and roughly temperature matching) such that the poisons don't get a chance to exceed the 0.25ppm level.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Chris206]

In addition, I would keep a daily log of your water parameters eg temp, Ph, ammonia etc. But also, when you did your last water change and fish behaviour.

Ive only been keeping fish since the summer, and did not really think this was necessary. Sadly, Ive lost fish due to illness recently and wish i had this info to look back on to identify any potential problem.

Hope you get as much enjoyment from fish keeping as i have.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree. Excellent advice from Chris. I found a simple notebook of ruled paper that had a cover of 3D pictures of fish for my young son's aquarium. Hardly a day goes by that I don't make entries and notes in it - I record all observations and thoughts in addition to anything that goes in to the aquarium or is done to it and any test results.

Its amazing how valuable this notebook has become. I just flip back in it and it answers all sorts of questions I have now. During fishless cycling it served as a continuous picture of progress such that a graph was never particularly needed.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ajs2294]

Ive found that excel works great as a record base for your tank. Its easy to set up columns for ammonia, pH, Nitrites, Nitrates and comments. Including columns for livestock if you wish. I believe that in most cases Kribensis cichlids require 50 gallons but i might be mistaken

 

[OldMan47]

I have kept kribs in a 20 gallon before AJS. They will even breed there, although there is no room to raise the fry in a small tank like that.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree about the excel spreadsheet. And some of the best communications we've had here were when users graphed their spreadsheet results on google docs and shared the resulting graph. WD

 

[Ashetto24]

Thank you all for your advice so far...it has been a huge help! I took a sample of my tank water to my a reputable fish store around my area and the lady stated that the ammonia was a bit high (I forgot to ask for the numbers). She recommended a 50% water change. I went out and bought an API ammonia testing kit and it was around roughly .50. I changed the water and added a declorinator to the new water I was adding (checked that the temperature matched). I plan to test the ammonia level in an hour or so. If that is still high when do you all recommend another water change...and if so, how much?

As far as my filter...it is a Tetra Whisper filter. It appears to have a carbon filter in there as well. That is really all I know as I had my friend set it up for me.

I believe the plants I have in there are Java moss. They seem to be growing like weeds!

 

[OldMan47]

Java moss growing like weeds is a good thing when there are fish in an uncycled tank. It will allow you to do smaller and less frequent water changes because the plants will help by absorbing some of the ammonia. I have used the Whisper line of filters and I am not impressed by them, but they do work as long as you don't go changing the cartridges in them.
If you find that you still have over 0.25ppm of ammonia after the water change, you should do another one. I would make sure you have given the new water time to mix well with the old before testing again, just to be sure to get a representative sample of the tank's ammonia levels. While you are testing, try testing some of the new water right before you put it into the tank. If you are dealing with chloramine, you may find some evidence of ammonia in the tap water too.
This is java moss tied to a piece of wood in one of my tanks, the color is really a deep green so I have no idea why it looks yellow in the picture.

This is the same clump about a year later showing its true color

 

[GAB99]

you should do as many water changes as necessary to bring the ammonia down to .25 or less.

sorry to say bosemani rainbows will not be able to live in your tank, try gold barbs,neon tetras, the dwarf gourami, otos, and the small corie species. just to note you cant have all these fish, if you need help, just go to the discussion forum on stocking.

if i was you id personally take the fish back and do fishless cycling lots easier and it gets done quicker.

 

[waterdrop]

Really excellent that you went right out and found a good test kit and are paying attention to the job of water changes Ashetto24! We get a lot of beginners who will get off on all sorts of other topics and not actually listen to those things!

Right now its important to remember that your 6 Serpae are depending on you as their filter. If you had a mammal for a pet it would be like you were providing the air. During the fish-in cycle (month or so) you'll want to settle in to some sort of pattern of testing and changing water. As mentioned in my earlier post, 0.25ppm is the maximum concentration of either ammonia or nitrite(NO2) that you ideally want to allow. Right after a water change (and after waiting say 20 min or more for mixing as OM47 said) your tests should show concentrations down near zero but after 12 or 24 hours you may find that they (or one of them usually) will have climbed back up. You just make a call on when its time to change water again such that you won't exceed one of the 0.25ppm limits before you can change water again. With 6 little Serpae and that good java moss growing, you should get some decent rest between water changes in a 20g I think.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ashetto24]

I tested my tank this afternoon and it was still hovering at .50 ppm (same as last night after the 50% change). I just completed about a 25% water change and added my dechlorinator. I am using this product called "Prime." I am wondering if this could be causing some of the reading of ammonia (well adding to the existing ammonia I may have in the tank). I was reading the label and it states that it removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia and that it converts ammonia into a non-toxic form that can be removed by a biofilter. I read somewhere, and please mistake me if I am wrong, that when it breaks down the ammonia into a less toxic form that it will still show up on readings.

I am cutting back how much I am feeding my fish from 2x daily to once...and hopefully that will help the build up of ammonia levels until I completely cycle my tank.

Also, a friend of mine has an established tank and I was thinking about obtaining some of his gravel to put into my tank...would this be a good idea so far as his tank is healthy?

 

[waterdrop]

I use Prime and consider it to be the best conditioner out there. I often recommend it to beginners as the best thing to use for the first year or so. You are correct that it will still read the ammonium (which is not harmful like the ammonia) just as if it were ammonia. But the conversion effect only gets you about a day and its likely that the majority of what your test is reading is actual ammonia.

I hate to say it but the .50 reading is just telling you that your water changes are too "wimpy" and infrequent, so I'd plan for them to be more significant in one way or the other.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ashetto24]

I just tested my water and it is hovering around .25ppm. I will test before I go to bed tonight and plan on doing another 25% water change tomorrow after work. Hopefully if I stick with this for a few days/week I will start to see an improvement. I am just afraid of stressing my fish out even more with the frequent water changes even though it is necessary.

Thanks again for all of the help. It is definitely a learning experience!

 

[OldMan47]

Frequent water changes are not a problem for the fish. When I have any kind of trouble with my water, I tend to do a 90% change on my smaller, under 50 gallons, tanks. I have done those daily and it just perked up the fish that had been suffering in poor water quality.